


Training The Apprentice

by misha906 (BoopPhysics)



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22521460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoopPhysics/pseuds/misha906
Summary: Ashara must learn how to properly fight like a Sith.
Kudos: 6





	Training The Apprentice

It was the cold, that was what it was. 

It was the cold and the room and it was because of how _empty_ the room was. Empty and cold and the lack of paint or light save for their sabers. That was the problem. 

It had to be the space, and the environment, and because all Ashara had for breakfast was a bowl of soup and it was almost the afternoon and she’s put nothing more into her stomach in the intervening hours, that's why she was losing. That had to be the explanation because there was no way she was losing a duel to a woman nearly thrice her age and half her size.

Roaring red raced right to her face, and Ashara nearly fumbled her guard, barely holding back the Sith's assault as she raised her lightsaber up in a messy parry. Crimson and cobalt hissed as they intersected, the sound grating against Ashara’s ears.

“Worthless,” her master, for a certain definition of the word, spat as she twirled away, leaving her standing beyond the arena’s lines. It was the eighth time now, eight times Ashara had lost by ring-out. The diminutive Twi’lek woman moved back to her end of the arena.

“Can’t we take a break?” Ashara begged, her arms sore and legs burning. 

“Again, child,” her master said. Ashara returned to the center of the arena. She wasn’t sure why she stayed with the Sith. Well, she did. It was because there was nowhere else for her to go. There was nowhere else for her to go because she’d murdered Master Ocera and Master Ryen, and there was absolutely no way for her to return to the Jedi after that action. All that would entail was swift imprisonment, or even execution. 

Though, execution did not seem so absurd to what her new master was putting her through. The second Ashara’s feet met the center of the arena, her world came alight with red once more, immediately forcing her to back up as a barrage of strikes threatened every angle. She could barely think, instead relying on instinct and practice to uphold a series of blocks and parries. It proved not to be enough, as she was easily edged out of the arena once more.

“Pathetic,” her master said.

“It’s the saber,” Ashara hissed. “I’m used to fighting with two, not one—”

The Togrutan apprentice stopped as a whirling silver handle arcing through the air caught her attention. It landed squarely in her upheld palm. Darth Occlus’s lightsaber was quite unlike most she’d expect from a Sith. No ornaments or gilded etchings on some rare and precious metal, no great sigil of an ancient pureblood house or an exposed housing unit to show off the luster of its kyber crystal. Just simple plastisteel and a button. It looked like something a child would put together. Ashara ignited it, letting its bloody hue illuminate the arena.

Occlus pulled a training saber off one of the racks with an outstretched hand. The hum of her toy seemed louder than the hiss of the much deadlier weapons in Ashara’s hands.

“You now have two lightsabers. Attack me again,” she said.

This time, she moved to the center of the room, planting the saber in the ground like a cane, crossing both arms above it and giving her a cold, challenging stare. Ashara advanced.

It was light fighting a windmill. No matter which techniques Ashara employed, her Sith master countered them like they were the most basic of blows. Each attempt of her assault failed horrifically against a seemingly perfect guard as her Twi’lek master effortlessly battered them aside.

“Consider this the first lesson, child,” she spoke. “You will never hope to defeat me relying on parlor tricks and extravagant technique. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Now find that passion, and prove to me you’re worthy of my attention.”

A slip of her arms brought the practice saber against her side. Ashara hissed in pain as heat and voltage was conducted through her clothing and wracked her body. Only the last vestiges of her quick thinking brought her body to bear, leaning one hand against the ground and using the Force to propel her upwards and deflect her master’s next blow. 

“This is pathetic, child!” Occlus called once more. “Let go of your training, and immerse yourself in your passion! Feel the anger from whence I struck down your previous pathetic masters! Channel the remorse that you felt as I dismantled your fellow students one by one! Express to me that undying hatred when I swallowed your ancestor whole! Feel it child! Rely on your past no more!”

Ashara, dazed as she was, let the Sith’s rhetoric roil her senses and began her assault anew. As plasma met cortosis once more, she remembered her anger and helplessness as she watched Master Ryen be cut down where he stood. She remembered the pleading cries of the other padawans as Occlus went through them like a blazing tempest of fire and fury. Blood tinged her vision as she watched her mother being dragged onto the street and butchered, and as the slave collar forced upon her throat, and as _lightning_ erupted from her fingertips to fry that virulent, violent, evil slavedriver where he stoo—

There was perhaps no one more surprised than Ashara as she drove the column of scarlet scintillation past Darth Occlus’s cheek. The saber stood just half an inch from the Sith lord’s face, the only mark of its score being the hissing onomatopoeia of plasma striking flesh and the emergence of the black-red scab on her face. 

Ashara retreated, leaping backwards to her end of the arena and bringing her pair of lightsabers up in a ward, unsure of how to proceed.

Occlus reached up timidly with a hand, and gently brushed her wound.

She smiled. “Good, my apprentice,” she said, and then ripped the cauterized blood away, letting deep crimson ichor drip down her cheek. She cast her training saber aside, and thrust out a clawed hand. Ashara didn’t even have time to think before Occlus’s saber returned to her side and ignited, illuminating the colosseum in bloodish hue once more.

“Again.”


End file.
